


breathes in / breathes out

by crescendi



Series: recrudescestuck [3]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human/Troll Society (Homestuck), Bathtubs, Ficlet, Gen, Underage Drinking, Vignette
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-17
Updated: 2018-12-17
Packaged: 2019-09-21 10:45:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 610
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17042264
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crescendi/pseuds/crescendi
Summary: She is fifteen years old. She is drunk. And she is alone.





	breathes in / breathes out

The baseline pounds from outside the bathroom door.

She breathes out, shuffles, brings her knees to her chest. She swallows. Her throat is dry.

She is fifteen years old. She is drunk. And she is alone.

She lays in the bathtub, curled in the fetal position. Breathes in.

She wonders where Jane is. Wishes Dirk was here. Wants Jake to give her a pep talk.

Breathes ou—

The door creaks open, and she holds her breath. Boots stomp and braids trails across the floor. The sink turns on. She lets out her breath, quietly.

Her guest is faced away from her, but she can see the long parallel horns of a troll. The silhouette from behind the curtains is tall, taller than her. 

She sits up (breathes in), movements deafeningly loud in the cramped bathroom. The sink squeaks off. Books click. The silhouette moves toward her. The curtain is yanked open.

She stares up at the troll. The troll is female—a violet, with fins, pulsing on either side of her face and pair of glasses on the edge of her nose. Her hair, even braided, touches the floor. Her horns are two sweeping pillars of yellow-orange. Multiple shades of blood decorate her knuckles. She can’t tell what color they are. The lighting turns it all shades of brown. It tints the troll’s gray skin yellowish, too. Her sign resembles her horns, or maybe the letter H, connected by a line.

She gives her a sloppy little half-smile. “Hi,” she whispers loudly. A breath out.

“The hull you doin’, gull?” the troll asks, eyeing her over.

She lifts her shoulders then lets them drop. “Tryin’—tryin’ t’ get ‘way fr’ th’ noiss, I gue’,” she slurs, tipping her fuzzy head towards the door, (breathes in) behind which some beat is pumping, audible even in here. “Ich koad, y’now?” She lets out a giggle. “Loud.”

The troll inspects her claws. “Do I minnow you?” Her eyes focus on her from behind her glasses, a sharp intent behind them. “Obubbliously, we parted on good terms cos I never forget a beach who made anemone of me, you minnow?”

The girl in the bathtub shuffles through her memory and comes up blank. “Ssorry,” she says, breathing in. “I—I don’ rembr me’in yoo...remember meeting.”

“You ain’t lyfin are you? Cos cod I hate guppies who lie to me.”

She gives her best wide innocent smile. “Gu’ thang I’m ‘n lyin’.” Her eyes travel down to the troll’s hands. “Wow’d you git hur? How. Hurt.”

The troll smiles widely back, revealing twin rows of pointy teeth, inlaid with jewels. “Beaches don’t got no coddamn seaspect left in ‘em. Don’t remember the fuschia is rightful place. Codda remind them who’s bass.”

She sucks in a breath. “Fuscia?” She tries to scramble to her feet, but slips and her knees slam into the linoleum of the tub, echoing throughout the confined bathroom. She settles for leaning forward, elbows on the bathtub’s outer rim, eyes rounded.

“Hull yeah, fuschia.” The girl spreads her arms, as if to say  _ bow down.  _ “Only one of my fuckin’ kind walkin’ the earth or swimmin’ the sea right minnow. ‘N the world fucking  _ forgot  _ how we used to mako it our lil beach.” She throws back her head and laughs.

“Wow,” she says in a breath out, struck to shock by the troll’s little speech.

“I like you, guppy.” The troll decaptchalogues a pen and takes her hand. She scrawls a handle across her palm—anemoneGyre.

The troll clasps her palm in hers and hauls her to her feet. “Water you called, gull?”

Breathes in.

“Roxy. Lalonde.”

“Peixes. Meenah Peixes.”


End file.
